Wandering in Spain in 1843

Front matter

jr.Clerk, tvtk, 202 Mat, Belt orn 1SABEIL 11. BORN IOTH OCT1? 1830. Tailz.shed bis T. C.jVewiy, 65M~artimef S7. Cerve/uicsh. Se/raure WANDERINGS IN SPAIN i.*** 1843. 11 Y MARTIN HAVERTY, ESQ. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: T. C. NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 65, MORTIMER STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1844. J BILLING, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPE*, WOK1NG SURREY TO WILLIAM BERNARD MACCABE, ESQ. My Dear Maccabe, I have not solicited any of the great ones of the land to throw the shield of their patronage over this, my first literary pro duction. The advantages which such pa tronage could bring, I care very little about. I have preferred offering this Dedication to a tried, disinterested, generous friend — to an enlightened, true-hearted and honest a man — whose worth and integrity, as well as high literary attainments and reputation, are objects of my admiration and of my ambition to imitate and acquire.

It is for this reason, my dear Maccabe that I address you on the present occasion, begging of you to accept this tribute as one of gratitude, respect and esteem, offered in all honesty and sincerity by Your ever obliged And faithful friend, M. Haverty. WANDERINGS IN SPAIN.

Chapter I

Journey from Paris — The Limousin — Ancient and Modern Nomenclature — Uzerche — Madame Laffarge — Cahors — Truffles — Toulouse — the 10th April, — Funeral of a Young Woman — The Cathedral, Sse. — Carcassonne — Narbonne — A Dash cf Nationality — Roman Antiquities — Old Style of Fortification — Perpignan — The Catalans — Interesting Phenomenon. Spain has ever been a kind of enigma to foreigners. There is about it an obscurity — a dissimilarity to other countries — that have caused it to be more imperfectly known to those who have not seen it, than any other na tion in Europe ; and for this we have the word, VOL. I. b JOURNEY FROM PARIS. not only of those who have travelled there, but of the Spaniards themselves. The latter, indeed, complain that they are the most mis understood and misrepresented people in the world — that even their nearest neighbours are grossly ignorant of their habits, feelings, and condition — and that foreigners treating on their country at the present day, do little more than repeat descriptions of things that have ceased to exist, or tbe old fictions, and mis takes, which had been perpetuated from one generation to another by their predecessors.

There is undoubtedly some truth in the com plaint ; and at all events, it might induce one to hesitate in giving to the world his impressions and opinions of a country so difficult to be correctly described. If, however, it be true, that the best works hitherto written about Spain, do not convey an accurate notion of that country, the writer of the present un pretending volumes has not the vanity to suppose that he can effectually fill up the literary lacune. Entering last on the field, he is simply the bearer of the latest news, and endeavours to describe the latest phases JOURNEY FROM PARIS. 3 in the state of Spain, moral and material ; and his ambition goes no farther than the hope that some few literary wanderers like himself, will be found to accompany him, through those pages, in his rambles to " the Sunny South," — to visit with him some of those scenes of history and romance, those schools of art, and monuments of other days, with which Spain abounds ; and to partake with him some of those pleasing recollections that flit like summer's rays over the traveller's memory, but which, like all happiness, social man loves not to enjoy alone.

The traveller who enters Spain, by some of its southern ports, may have the advantage of seeing, in the strongest light, the contrast between the scenery and manners of that half African country, and those of the more northern nations of Europe : but I had se lected a different route, and traversing France, was gradually introduced by the costumes, language and scenery of Languedoc to those of the Rousillon ; whilst from the Catalans of the Rousillon to the Catalans of Spain, the transition is scarcely perceptible, and the b JOURNEY FROM PARIS. latter, in their turn, make way for the strange persons and things we subsequently meet in Andalusia and Castile. My route, however, was one which afforded many interesting subjects for observation, and must not be passed over in silence. With the more remote destination of the peninsula before me, I did not diverge much from the direct fine to search for curiosities natural or artificial ; but in the ancient cities and historical scenes along this, one of the least frequented, per haps, of the high roads of Europe, objects of no common interest present themselves un sought for, and a passing glance at them may be deemed a natural introduction to the sub jects which follow.

It was towards the end of the second week of January that I left the ever gay and ever pleasant city of Paris, where the revelries of the Carnival had already commenced, and many a compensation for the gloominess of the season was to be found — and wended my way towards the south, through the ancient town of Etampes, and the famous city of Orleans, where Joan of Arc, in bronze, re- FRENCH LANDSCAPE SCENERY. 5 minds us of some curious tales of history from her lofty pedestal ; and thence through the tristful solitudes of the Limousin, towards the barren hills and sunny fields of Languedoc. The greater portion of France may be de scribed as a great, uninterrupted plain. From the English channel in the north, to the Py renees in the south west, and the mountains of Auvergne in the south, and from the Bay of Biscay in the west, to the chain of the Cote d'or in Burgundy, the eye, weary of the monotonous outline, wanders over one vast plain, — fertile, cultivated, happy, but want ing in variety and in the wilder features of the picturesque.

There are, indeed, hills in Britanny which form an exception to this general description ; and on entering the old province ofthe Limousin, there is also such a change in the surface of the country as might be supposed to take away from that character of tame uniformity ; but in the latter case, at least, the change in the landscape brings with it but little improvement in picturesque effect. Instead of the dead level which previously prevailed, we traverse HILLS OF THE LIMOUSIN. this district over low hills, extending on either side as far as the eye can reach ; or rather over an elevated table land, broken by zig-zag valleys and ravines, so as to pre sent the appearance of distinct hills, of nearly equal elevation, along the highest and con nected ridge of which winds the road ; whilst the horizon is interrupted in the east by the blue and rugged outline of the heights of Cantal and Puy-de-dome.

These hills seem to be, in a great measure, composed of loose stones, with a scanty intermixture of dark, reddish earth ; the valleys bear the marks of devastating torrents ; and but for a tolerable sprinkling of chesnut and some other trees, over its face, the appearance of the country would be that of a bleak and gloomy wilderness. On the southern declivities of the hills many small vineyards are found ; but grain would seem to be more generally an object of cultivation, while the corn fields of the interminable plains of the Orleannais, and surrounding provinces, appear to be amply sufficient to supply the wants of all France. THE LIMOUSIN. The houses in the Limousin, are built of stone, with scarcely any mortar, and roofed with tiles, which, as well as the stone, assume a dark hue after a few years ; and their general aspect is mean, dirty and cheerless ; in good keeping with the wretched appearance of the inhabitants, which is not a little at variance with their habits of industry, and with the existence of some kind of manufactures, such as those of cloth, delft and earth enware, silk-spinning, &c, in almost every town and village.

Like the peasantry of my own country, the poor inhabitants of the Limousin seem to derive a great portion of their resources from the rearing of swine, which is carried on to a much greater extent there than in any other part of France that I have visited ; and a great many of their dwellings are fully as wretched as the most miserable hovels in the south and west of Ireland, to which they bear, indeed, no slight resemblance. I believe, however, that that resemblance is limited to external appear ance, and, that too, in the eyes of the passing stranger ; for the food of the Limousin THE LIMOUSIN. peasantry is wholesome and abundant, and the patches of inhospitable hills which they cultivate they can, at least, call their own. Hence, mendicancy is not very general there, although on the whole, the comforts of life, as well as the refinements and improvements of the age, seem to have made but little pro gress among them.

Limoges, a town interesting for its antiquity, and picturesque sites, was the ancient capital of what was once the province of the Limousin, before the levellers of the revolu tion abolished the feudal divisions and no menclature, along with many other relics of " poetic times," in France. I do not mean to convey that it is from any pen chant of affection or regret for the days of aristocratic power and popular degradation with which they are connected, that I employ those ancient names and divisions ; but simply because they are associated with in numerable recollections of history and ro mance, which antiquity endears to us, and hence, may be the better understood by readers in our own country. The old THE LIMOUSIN UZERCHE. 9 poetic names of Normandy and Burgundy, Lorraine and Torraine, Languedoc and Pro vence, are almost as effectually erased from the map of France, as those preceding ones of Celtic Gaul and Aquetaine ; their use is considered nearly as illegal as that of the old weights and measures, which have been superseded by the decimal system ; and, not withstanding deep-rooted repugnance, people have so habituated themselves to the unhis torical and inharmonious denominations oi Gers, and Indre, and Lot, and Tame, &c, that the old ones, with all their euphony and souvenirs, are seldom mentioned.

Having seen Limoges only from the win dows of the diligence, and during the brief interval between the end of breakfast and the conducteur's cry of " En voiture, Mes sieurs !" I must pass it without description. Some sixteen leagues further on, at Uzer che — a picturesque village perched on the summit and on the steep declivity of a hill, with ruined turrets, and black, battlemented towers above, and the brawling mountain stream of the Visere, tumbling and foaming b MADAME LAFFARGE. among the rocks below — I was within three leagues of Le Glandier, the scene of the well known tragedy in which the unfortunate Ma dame Laffarge was the guilty heroine. The epithets "unfortunate " and "guilty" are per haps improperly connected. But when I looked around on that wild, remote, and almost desert district, with its ignorant and semi barbarous population, in the midst of which the refined, accomplished and beautiful Marie Capelle, the victim of a mercenary marriage — un marriage de convenance — was doomed to pass her life in solitude, regret, despair, I could not help shuddering at her fate, although I dared not stop to consider whether in that involuntary emotion there was any lurking apology for her crime.

Many people in that vicinity believe her innocent ; and they say that foreigners, who, since her trial, often turn from the high road to visit the old monastery and the forges of Le Glandier, where she lived, generally express sympathy for her fate. There was at all events much of romance and of deep passion in that affair ; and how many whom justice has condemned CAHORS. as criminals have thus obtained the sympathy of less rigorous humanity? The hotel keeper at Uzerche showed me a letter in the hand-writing of Madame Laffarge. It was addressed to one of the witnesses who appeared at her trial, and was written in an affecting style ; and as I closed it, I could not help exclaiming — let the moralist blame me as he will — " Pauvre Marie Capelle !" Some ten leagues from Uzerche we pass ed through Brives, usually called Brives la-gaillarde — the merry.

It is a pleasant name, and like many others in that gay, hospitable, happy country, may be connected with some pleasing associations in the wan derer's memory. The next place of note on our route was Cahors, a town full of antiqui ties, among which the eye of the traveller must be more immediately struck by the ruined castle of Pope John, at the entrance to the town on the Paris road ; by tbe mar ket-place, and by the venerable cathedral, which forms the most remarkable contrast of any he has yet met in the journey from Paris, with the gothic architecture of the CAHORS TOULOUSE. northern provinces. In Cahors and its vicinity the olfactory nerves are assailed in all directions by the scent — to me no very pleasant one — of those subterraneous fungi, truffles, which are elsewhere an object of such luxury, but are there found in great abundance.

They only grow in certain fields, sometimes at a depth of several inches in the soil, and I have heard of no other indica tion at the surface, by which their presence is discovered, unless the smell, for detecting which I am told that dogs are trained. Truffles form a very important article of commerce in Cahors and other towns in the south of France, and half the dishes which are brought to table, in the hotels there, are prepared aux trusses. We now quitted those solitary hills which I have been describing, and having passed the old town of Montauban, after a few more tedious hours, the wheels of the diligence began to rattle over the sharp pavement of Toulouse — Toulouse the Roman ! Silent and melancholy, though it be, like most cities of the south, this ancient capital TOULOUSE. of Languedoc, (with a population of about 60,000) merits a brief delay to visit some of its curiosities ; at the same time that the recollection of our ulterior destination must prevent us from loitering there too long.

Not many hundred paces to the east of the city, and separated from it by the famous Canal-du-Midi, or canal of Languedoc, runs a long ridge of elevated land ; and on the highest part of this ridge stands a white obelisk of great elevation, called by the in habitants La Pyramid, and inscribed, " Aux braves, morts pour la Patrie."* — " To the Brave who have died for their country." On the memorable 10th of April, 1814, the fur rows, gardens and green fields of that hill, and for many an acre round its base, flowed with human blood. They were strewed with many a thousand slain, among whom the Frenchman, the Briton, and the Spaniard lay indiscriminately together. I need not allude to the conflicting nature of the ac counts given of that great battle. The French say that they were gloriously avenged by it, for all the reverses their army had met with in Spain ; and " that all the triumphs TOULOUSE. of the British standard in the Peninsula, were eclipsed by this last ray of glory from Napoleon's setting sun."

The English account is all the other way. Yet France has raised the obelisk as a monument of victory, and I believe with a just claim ; for although Soult, following out his system of manœuvres, retired after the battle to Carcassonne, by far the greater loss was on the British side. At all events the battle of Toulouse being wholly unnecessary, was one of the most wanton scenes of bloodshed recorded in the sanguinary annals of war. The walk to the monument was the first which I took at Toulouse, and without returning to the town, we may visit the new cemetery, which is situated on the declivity of the same hill, and is rendered conspicuous at a distance by two red obelisks and Egyptian colonades that ornament the entrance. Whilst examining the tombs, of which a few might be considered elegant, I had an opportunity of seeing a funeral ceremony of an interesting description.

The solemn chant first reached my ears from a distance, as the mournful TOULOUSE. procession advanced along the banks of the canal, and at length the funeral train entered the Egyptian gateway, headed by two clergy men in surplices, with choir boys, cross bearer and acolytes, chanting at intervals the verses of a psalm. Next was the coffin, borne by young women dressed in black, and on it was placed a garland of white flowers. Then came two other groups of girls bearing what appeared to me to be two palls, the first black and the second white ; and finally, a few respectably dressed persons of both sexes brought up the rear. After the usual prayers and responses of the obsequies had been repeated, the young women sung in ex ceedingly sweet and silvery tones, some verses beginning " Domine exaudi orationes meas, &c." " O Lord hear my prayers ;" the earth then fell heavily on the coffin, and the grave closed over the young and fair.

The chief of the remarkable buildings of Toulouse are the cathedral of St. Stephen, and the church of St. Sernin, or Saturninus, both of which present striking peculiarities of architecture. The cathedral was founded TOULOUSE. by Raymond VI. Count of Toulouse, about the beginning of the 13th century; but of the ancient edifice, the only remaining por tions are the tower and the nave, which is single, the bold arches of its vast gothic vault being supported by consoles or abut ments instead of pillars. The choir which was burnt down, and rebuilt in the gothic of the day, about the beginning of the 17th century, was evidently intended as the com mencement of a new church ; and this cathedral, on the whole, presents specimens of nearly all the styles of ogive architecture which have prevailed in Europe from the Byzantine period to our own days.* The church of St. Sernin illustrates another architectural system, and must be an object of considerable interest to the antiquary and traveller.

It was built in the llth cen tury, and is a stupendous specimen of the style of architecture, called Byzantine, which flourished in the eastern empire before its fall, its great architype being the Basilica of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and its most * See note 1, Appendix. CARCASSONNE NARBONNE. 17 splendid monuments being found in Central Europe.* From Toulouse I passed to Carcassonne, near which on a hill, are the fortified ruins of the cite, or ancient town, now partly a military post, but chiefly inhabited by poor persons employed in manufactories ; and my next resting place was Narbonne — the first transalpine colony of the Romans, founded in the year of the city 636 — the capital of Gallia Narbonensis — the birth place of a Roman emperor (Carus), of Terentius Varo, and of the great St. Sebastian.

On the evening after my arrival in Nar bonne, I stood outside the Montpellier gate of the city, gazing at the Roman bas-reliefs and inscriptions with which the walls around the gate are studded. The labourers were returning from the fields in their grotesque costumes, driving their laden mules and asses, while an old man in a russet jacket and red night-cap, with a rusty sword over his arm, gave a careless glance at the pass ers-by, to ascertain that no contraband goods to any considerable amount entered the city. * See note 2, Appendix. IRISH SOUVENIRS. A cold wind blew from the Pyrenees, and a respectable old man, who was in conversa tion with" the veteran douanier, was muffled in his cloak after the Spanish fashion. Find ing that he of the cloak spoke French in telligibly,* I was glad to get some informa tion from him about the surrounding objects ; but after a few minutes he began, with true Gallican curiosity, to guess at my country.

Having first assigned to Germany the honour of being my father-land, he discovered his mistake, and proceeded ; " Monsieur est done, probablement, An glais?" " Pardon, Monsieur, J'en serais bien fache ; je suis Irlandais ; si vous avez, par hasard, entendu parler de mon pays ?" " Heard of Ireland, and her great O'Con nell ! " he exclaimed, " Well, if the Queen of England were to make O'Connell her minis ter, France would have no chance against her. Voila tout ! But I know more than that about your country." " Perhaps you have been there," I observed. * See note 3, Appendix. NARBONNE. 19 " Not exactly, but I was very near it. I belonged to the squadron that our emperor sent long ago to save Ireland ; and if we all got there, bah ! we'd soon make the Eng lish cut their sticks, sficher le camp J " Well, who would think of meeting with a veteran of La Hoche's expedition at such a time and place ?

It put the Roman antiquities clear out of my head. I postponed my antiquarian researches until next day, and adjourned with my new acquaintance, who had seen the shores of old Ireland from the rigging of a French fleet, to talk, over a glass of wine, about all that happened and all that might have happened. The Italians remember, without regret, thought I, the in roads of Napoleon in their country, notwithstanding all the blood which flowed in his footsteps. He would have given free and enlightened institutions to Spain, if the admirers of hereditary despotism and its foreign supporters had permitted. Switzer land still subsists with the constitution which Napoleon gave her. Sweden retains the king he sent her ; and the German States which he erected, are not the worse to- ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. day for having been rescued by that great man from the absolutism of ages.

Who then can say, but he might have given liberty, with a happy and successful consti tution, to our own country also ? Had he effected a descent on Ireland, instead of undertaking his unfortunate expedition to Russia, the Emerald island might be at this day a separate and independent nation, his deadliest foe would have been crushed, and his dynasty now perhaps fixed upon the throne of France. But it is an idle specula tion to talk of what merely "might have happened," in such a case. To return to the Roman antiquities of Nar bonne — All the faces of almost all the bastions, curtains and ravelins of that city ex hibit numberless fragments of bas-reliefs* inscriptions, and sculptured entablatures, sufficient to have ornamented hundreds of splendid edifices, and showing what the gorgeous magnificence of that Roman colony must have been.

Who could think, while looking to-day from the* top of the Alban hill on the city low-lying in the desert plain of Latium, her seven hills scarcely interrupt- NARBONNE. ing the monotonous level of the barren waste, that her glory once extended so far, and that she covered Gaul and Spain, Germany and Britain, with those monuments of her power and civilization, to the stupendous grandeur of which their crumbling fragments now bear witness !* Thus ought we, perhaps, to look with even more veneration on the Roman ruins that we meet with in those countries, than on the monuments of Italy itself, which although still more magnificent, excite less wonder, as being raised at the centre itself of the power that called them into existence. The Narbonne of the present day, with a population of only 12,000, is an inconsider ble place, and does not occupy the site of * Such was the splendour and importance ofthe Ro man Province of Gaul under the Cæsars ,* that the most illustrious citizens preferred a sojourn there in some official capacity, to one even in Italy.

Thus Agrippa, Drusus, Tiberius, and the most wealthy Romans sought for offices in Gaul ; and Suetonius tells us, that when that extravagant monster, Caligula, wished to dispose of articles of great value, he sent them to be sold in Gaul, as being the country in which it was most likely that wealthy purchasers would be found. OLD FORTIFICATIONS. the ancient city, the change in its position being chiefly the work of Francis I. who caused the new town to be built and sur rounded with strong ramparts, part of the present works, however, having been erected by Louis XIV. The walls, with their numerous portes echapatoires concealed in the recesses, or deeply curved, re-entering flancs of the bastions, their subterranean galleries, &c. are an excellent specimen of the style of fortification in use immediately before the adoption of Vauban's system.

The streets are very narrow, irregular, crooked, ill paved and filthy, as is the case in most of the old villes de Guerre, or fortified towns, and the Canal de Robine divides the town into the cite and bourg, the principal promenade being on the bank of the canal, and called the Allee-des- Soupirs, or Avenue of Sighs — a very appro priate designation, no doubt, for so poetic a locality. The cathedral of St. Just and St. Pasteur, is excelled by no church that I have seen in grandeur of design, and the fine proportions of gothic architecture ; but it is unfinished, the choir and sanctuary alone NARBONNE PERPIGNAN. 23 being as yet built. Its foundation was laid so far back as 1272, and the work has now been finally resumed, with the aid of the govern ment, since 1840. It is curious that the most insignificant church in the town, is that which is dedicated to St. Sebastian, who was born there, and whose memory has inspired the painter, the sculptor and the architect, with such noble ideas in other countries.

Olive gardens and vineyards cover the soil where the capital of Gallia Narbonensis once stood. From Narbonne, I proceeded to Perpignan, the ancient capital of the Rousillon, whose celebrated plains, extending to the foot of the Pyrenees, surround its walls. It occupies the site of a municipium, built by Flavius Vespasian, and, with a population of about 17,000, is at present one of the strongest places in the kingdom. La Porte Notre Dame, is defended by a chateau called the Castillet, of singular construction, and built, it is supposed, so early as the 5th century. The citadel has a double enceinte of strong works, rendering it capable of sustaining a PERPIGNAN. second siege, after the success of an enemy in a first one ; and in the centre of that fortress is the donjon, which was the gloomy residence of the counts of Rousillon, and of the kings of Arragon and Majorca, at the time when this part of France formed a portion of those kingdoms.

The gate of the city called La porte Canet, was built by Vauban, and a great portion of the fortifications were rebuilt in the time of the Empire. The cathedral, a noble edifice, begun in the 14th century by the kings of Majorca, and finished about the end of the 15th, under Louis XL, is a fine specimen of that style of gothic which we find prevailing to a great extent in the south of France — the vault of the nave, which is single, very lofty and of a bold span, springing from the phnths of light abutments, without columns or vertical mouldings. The church of St. Jean le Vieux, built about the beginning of the 1 1th century, and those of the Cordeliers, Grands Carmes, and the Dominicans are also worthy of observation, but the streets are paved with such exceedingly sharp stones, while THE CATALANS. 25 cabs and cars are unknown accommodations, that it is a painful task to search for curi osities in Perpignan.

Here the traveller must feel that he has already, as it were, left gay and cheerful France. He is surrounded by a motley Catalan population, speaking a strange tongue, and wearing their characteristic russet dress and gorra, or long red cap, or sometimes even the Moorish cowl or capuce : and the dark-eyed sons of Spain, followers of the fortunes of some defeated party in the late revolutions, prowl about with half-military half-bandit mien, temporary exiles in the land of a hospitable neighbour, whence they can see the clouds which hover over their native shore. Until a comparatively late period in history, the surrounding country was, in fact, considered as a portion of Catalonia, whether subject to a French or Spanish sovereign, Perpignan having been the chief town of the province on one side of the Pyrenees, as Barcelona was of that on the other ; and hence we need not wonder at vol. i. c INTERESTING PHENOMENON. finding the Catalan language and habits even much more prevalent in Perpignan than those of France.* One evening while I was walking on the glacis of the southern lines of Perpignan, the setting sun had just disappeared behind the summit of Cannigou, the highest ofthe moun tains in the west : but his glories still burst with dazzling effulgence from beyond the mountain, amidst the masses of clouds which were piled around.